Taken over the course of numerous and extended visits to the market stalls of Covent Garden in the 1960s and 70s, here are some 300 color and black and white photographs that add up to much more than a record of a lost institution of London life. In fact, they form an evocative portrait of the people who worked and shopped there, while also capturing the distinctive character of the streets and architecture though every season, and Clive Boursnell includes transcribed commentary from the porters, stallholders, and flower sellers who knew the market best.

"I can recall no other volume that has had such a powerful Proustian effect on me.... I worked on the fringe of the market for some of this period. From the moment I opened the book, I was hurtled—whoosh!—back across the decades. My head filled with the smell—a mixture of ancient cabbage, fresh salad, Players No. 6 and diesel exhaust—of the Piazza."—Christopher Hirst

"What is remarkable about his photographs is that the routine acts of life—the shouting, the smoking, the errands and conversations of the market traders and their customers—are revealed as being full of grace, drama, humour and surprise, as though the Covent Garden street market were a stage and its occupants all actors, orators and dancers."—Times (London)

"My heart sank at first. Oh god, not another picture book about a picturesque corner of London, especially over-hyped Covent Garden. Then it leapt right back up. How wrong I was. Very rapidly I became absolutely absorbed. Now I am recommending it effusively to anyone who will listen. This is not only a fascinating book, it is an act of photographic salvage and a very valuable historic record."—Design Week